Build 2000062408 The Taskbar reserves screen real estate. However, the Taskbar only duplicates functionality available in the menus. The Taskbar seems unnecessary. Why is it there? Could it be removed? New windows can be opened using the File menu. Switching between the components can be done using the Tasks menu. Mozilla Webtools can be accessed using the personal toolbar or bookmarks Open windows are listed in the Tasks menu.

Click View -> Toolbars -> Taskbar

Reopening. Henri knows very well that the taskbar can be turned off, but that's not the point. The point is that -- in non-commercial builds, anyway -- the taskbar serves no useful purpose. * The component bar should be an optional part of the status bar, as it was in 4.x. * The `Mozilla' links will be rendered redundant as soon as the new set of default bookmarks is introduced (see bug 20862). * The `Open Windows' menu can be better implemented as a main menu, or (as it is now) as the bottom section of the Tasks menu. The taskbar serves so little purpose, in the non-commercial version of Mozilla, that the screen real estate it occupies would be better used for content.

I agree entirely. I'd even go as far as to say remove it from the comm builds as well, but I know netscape needs it so they can stuff it full with commercial crap [which, IMHO, is a very big mistake]

forgot to cc myself - sorry for spam

The *only* purpose it serves is 1-click access to mail/composer/addresses. 4.7 was much superior in including this on the status bar. It's pretty rediculous to take make a whole toolbar just to house those 4 icons. Open Windows are listed in the bottom of the tasks menu, and hard-coding 'bookmarks' into the chrome as the Mozilla pull-up does serves no purpose (to users).

As I said, it has much more of a purpose in the commercial builds...namely so that it can be stuffed with commercial junk I do agree that it needs to go byebye from the Mozilla builds, though.

Is this bug just to completely remove the taskbar or to move the four icons [the component bar] from the taskbar to the statusbar as 4x had it, and then remove the taskbar? if the latter, please clarify the summary line

Reassigning to Ben Goodger.

Resummarizing as requested.

I'd appreciate it if the screen real estate taken by the component bar was allocated to meta data display instead. I don't use the component bar. However, the component bar seems to be quite popular even though you could switch between the components using the Tasks menu and keyboard shortcuts could be added to the relevant menu items. How about adding an ability to hide the component bar without hiding the entire status bar?

This was discussed in the newsgroup, and it seems as if it would be a fair amount of work to do it. I, for one, would be highly interested in hearing marketing's response to this toolbar. For example, a good question to answer: why the HELL do we have this extra taskbar? I find it sick that we're devoting an entire toolbar to marketing junk...furthermore, it's *extremely* obvious to the enduser that the entire point of the toolbar is to stuff it full of commercial junk. I cannot believe we are willing to sacrifice usability and screen real estate so marketing can throw its crap on the screen. This taskbar is very much standing in the way of making the classic skin resemble Navigator 4.x's UI. German: can you provide one GOOD reason why we are including this taskbar, from a UI/UE/Usability standpoint? Is it true that marketing speaks louder than user experience at Netscape? And John, your comments on it? Please don't pull out usability test this and survey that. I am speaking based on a *multitude* of indepedent comments I've seen since PR1, all of which said basically the same thing: "at least IE doesn't try to force marketing crap on you the minute you open their browser." This is the first thing people notice when they open the browser -- that Netscape has made their browser a full-force ad campaign. I realize that Netscape needs to make money, but I don't think embedding little advertisements in its browser is the way to go about doing that. Please, at the very list, make the toolbar hidden by default. In a company that truly cares about its customers and its product's success, usability and user experience speak louder than the marketing department.

s/list/least in my last comment. sorry.

As a side note, MozillaZine (http://www.mozillazine.org) is running a very similar poll right now [regarding whether there should be a single task- & status- bar a la nav4, or if things should remain as they are now] As of right now, the results: Of 406 people total, only 29% (120 people) were fine with the current setup. Meanwhile, 70% (286 people) preferred a single status bar.

Note that there are legitimate uses for this bar, it's just that no one has chosen to implement them, e.g. - 'popup assistant' area that brings up a small popup region to offer assistance with complex tasks, or tasks that can be sped up (form submission, etc... for example, you could convert Wallet to use this feature, then disable Assistant notifications, and then you'd never be asked "Do you want to save..." for form submissions ever again' I'm sure there are more. In the future, I want us to gain the ability for users to add and remove toolbars at will, and populate them with whatever they see fit.

The thing is most people use the task switcher buttons (Navigator, Mail, Address Book, Composer) but they don't use the 'Mozilla' or 'Open Windows' menus. The 'Mozilla' menu is not used as links in the personal toolbar folder are more convienient and customisable and the 'Open Windows' serves no purpose as most operating systems/window managers have a way of switching between open windows fairly easily (Windows, KDE, Gnome taskbar, etc). As blake says there's no reason for this bar apart from commercial crap in the Netscape 6 builds (which I think is a very bad idea from a commercial point of view, it'll put many people off using the browser - remember many people don't know how to disable the sidebar so they won't have a chance in hell of disabling the taskbar - much better to have the commercial links in the personal toolbar only (fully customisable of course). that's where links should be and always have been). Also many people who know how to disable the taskbar won't do so because they use the app switcher buttons. OK Ben comes up with some interesting possibilities but in the current state the tasbar should go and the app switcher buttons should become detachable again and dockable to the status bar. If the taskbar ever does then make a return you can then dock the app buttons to either the status bar the task bar be floating or non-existant.

Ben, I see your point but what I don't understand is why we're trying to stock this release with *everything* we're going to need in the future. I see this again and again....I fully realize it's important to prepare for the future, but users DO expect to see SOME change and progression between releases...the first release of something shouldn't contain everything it's ever going to have throughout its life. If there's something useful for this bar _NOW_, let's implement it. If not, there's no need to blind the user with advertisements. I'm sure most users would prefer having to experience the "shock" when the next release contains something that the former one didn't rather than having a little advertisement bar at the bottom of their screen stealing their space just to prepare for future releases.

One minor thing, if we do abolish the taskbar I think the statusbar should take the position the taskbar does now (i.e. is under both the browser window and the sidebar and not just the browser window like the current status bar).

Blake, David, its not our concern at all what NSCP choose to do with their 'Netscape 6.0' product, or about their UI design. This bug is regarding removing it from the Mozilla browser. If derivative browsers choose to add a bar titled 'taskbar', they are more then welcome to. The correct solution for Mozilla is adding the ability for themes to create their own taskbars. If 'modern' chooses to do something useful with a theme- created toolbar named 'taskbar', so be it. Ben proposed a potentially useful use for a toolbar. This method also wouldn't interfere with NSCP's plans. They could simply modify the default theme to include their toolbar with links to partner sites. This gives power users the ability to remove this bar by switching to another theme. I think thats a pretty damned good compromise.

This bug is not about Netscape 6--this bug is about the Mozilla.org builds. Considering the Mozilla.org builds, this is not merely an enhancement. Also, I don't think potential future features that might go in the Taskbar warrant keeping the Taskbar as it is now. If there really are such features, let's discuss them in n.p.m.ui. The Taskbar might not be the optimal place for such features.

In Netscape 4.x, you could not get rid of the component bar, something that annoyed me quite a bit. OK, you could either have them in the status bar, or floating somewhere, covering something up (two bad choices). In Mozilla, however, you can now get rid of the component bar by eliminating the Taskbar. I see this as a positive for Mozilla that I would not like to lose. If the compoinents were on the atatus bar, some URLs (the really long ones) wouldn't be seen in their entirety. Personnally I want my browser to be my browser, and that's all, so anything that ties the other components into the browser is a bad idea. Just my $ .02

OK, I've watched discussion here, in newsgroups, and elsewhere, and it seems almost everyone is pretty much in agreement that the taskbar provides no useful purpose in Mozilla. I'm a bit busy just now, but if anyone provides a patch to *cleanly* remove the taskbar, mozilla will take it.

`if anyone provides a patch ... mozilla will take it' == helpwanted. Other bugs which have been alluded to in this bug: * `Move statusbar under the sidebar' (bug 44731) * `metadata attributes not accessible to use' (bug 1995).

I'd suggest that this patch doesn't just remove the taskbar it also adds the icons for the various mozilla components (Navigator, Mail, Composer and Address Book) to the status bar like in Communicator 4.x and preferably to have a tab you can click that'll make the bar 'float' as in communicator. The View -> Toolbars -> Taskbar menu item could then be replaced with an option to make the communicator style component bar invisible.

I'll try to hack out a clean patch. Remind me in a couple days when I get home. Ben: sorry to bother, but was just wondering: what ever came of that screenshot you had not all that long ago with the status text and progress meter combined? Did that new status bar also contain the component bar?

I agree that it looks very useless in Mozilla. It will stay for Netscape 6 though, as Netscape has a bunch of 'useful services' integrated at this location, thus provising a separation between 'personal' space (bookmarks bar) and 'built- in' navigation aids for the 'typical Netscape customer'. For Mozilla I would recommend that the patch consider to put the status bar only underneath the content area as the status only applies to that, not the sidebar (like security or % loading)

Fixed links are always a bad idea (which is what these 'useful services' are - links to various netcenter services). It means if netscape stops offering a service or changes the URL then the customer is left with a link that they can't use anymore, I think making the taskbar customisable should happen if they're planning to keep it for NS6, possibly right click the taskbar and you'll get a list of Netscape approved services and you can select which ones you want on your taskbar. This would make it similar in customisability to the sidebar. But Netscape has to make money with this program so I'm glad that they're doing it with something that can easily be switched off by the knowledgeable user. We then have the problem with what do do with the component buttons if in Mozilla they're moved to the status bar but in Netscape 6 they stay in the taskbar. If a user wants to remove the taskbar but keep the component buttons would there be an option to put them on the statusbar in Netscape 6?

Re David Hallowell's last comments: Netscape 6 UI design is, to my understanding, irrelevant here. If they want to use fixed links... Re germans previous comments, I agree status bar should be only under the content area, as that's what it concerns... if you want it longer, you know what you can do with the sidebar... Re David Hallowell's second to last comment (concerning the detachable component bar): are you saying someone actually used this horrid feature of 4.x? =) I'd suggest that if these type of detachable tabs aren't already available to chrome, we don't waste time creating them. Taskmenu and hotkeys are plenty, anyway... everyone knows the component bar is just there to look pretty.

I'm beginning to have second thoughts. As much as I dislike the space the taskbar uses, it has a clearly defined role - taskbar. Place to launch apps. This does not merge well with the statusbar, which has been refined to display only the status of the window above it: security, load progress, etc. It seems that adding task switching to the statusbar would muddle the purpose. Also, the statusbar has limited horizontal space. Can we come up with a better solution than either the current layout or simple integration?

Here we go again... >Place to launch apps. No need. Mozilla components can be accessed via the menubar. Other apps can be accessed in the OS standard ways. >This does not merge well with the statusbar, No need to put it in the status bar. The functionality is already available via the menubar. >Can we come up with a better solution than either the current layout or >simple integration? Yes. Removing the taskbar and accessing the components via menus or the related keyboard shorcuts. The folks who are too much in a hurry to use the menus should be able to memorize a couple of keyboard shortcuts.

Bleh. The menubar is at the top of the window. The component bar is elsewhere. Ben, how about autohide? If the buttons are only visible when you move your mouse into the area then they don't eat space. One warning: if this is the approach we take, the buttons can not hide other buttons [offline, security]. fwiw, I agree there is too little space in the status bar to go cramming these extra items. But I do like having access to them. <sigh>I can't imagine anyone listening to me.

Timeless: Auto-hide can only work in a non-annoying way if two conditions are met. First, the auto-hidden item must be at an edge of the screen. And second, the item is shown based on the cursor's speed (rather than just its position). Both of these two conditions are required, in order to ensure that the user doesn't open the auto-hidden item accidentally (and then have to go through contortions waiting for it to disappear). But neither of these conditions could be met by anything in Mozilla in the near future. (In fact, I've never known them to be met properly in *any* software.) I see no reason why the component bar (if you really think we still need one) can't work the same way as it did in 4.x -- if you have a window that's too small for it to fit in the status bar, then click on its grippy and it turns into its own little window. (Yes I know we don't have windoids yet, but still.) Seamonkey is not a Launcher, an Apple menu, a Dock, a Wharf, or a Start menu. The role of launching apps should be left to software which is devoted to that purpose, and which does it better than a Seamonkey taskbar ever could.

*** Bug 48964 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

New bookmarks file is checked in, nothing blocking progress here. Can themes completly remove the task bar/give it a completly seperate function, or are they mere skins? If its more then a skin, one of Blue, modern, and classic should show this, as they are currently all just skins.

Themes could hide the taskbar, but not remove it completely. And as far as I know, themes couldn't move the component bar from the taskbar to the status bar.

*** Bug 53016 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Has anyone made any progress on this?

Ben's last report was a WONTFIX and I support that. If you have objections, asking silly questions here won't change things. Or you could offer a ui spec and explain why it would satisfy eveyone.

Ben's last report was not a WONTFIX, and no-one has been asking silly questions. Here's a UI spec: | | Work exactly the same way as 4.x. It's not up to us to explain why it would satisfy `everyone', because we're not the ones who are proposing any change from the 4.x design. It is up to those who changed the design for this version of Mozilla to explain how the new design improves usability for Mozilla users. And so far, they have utterly failed to do that.

One point: Currently, the icon for the Mail in the componet bar is the only place where you can put alert signal when a new mail has arrived. Whatever happens to the component bar in this bug, there should always be a place where you keep this information visible to the user.

I understand that this bug is labeled "future," but I just want to add something. Has anyone used MS Word 2000? Notice that in this app, the Standard and Formatting toolbars are combined, but the user is able to drag out and separate them. Isn't there a way that you can add functionality to move toolbars around and combine them in this way? If this functionality can be done, those people that want it separate can just drag it out and place it anywhere, even floating. (In 4.x, it's halfway there - the component bar can be dragged out, but can't be recombined like MS Word.)

Jeffrey, I think that's bug 17306.

and bug 48926.

Chaning the qa contact on these bugs to me. MPT will be moving to the owner of this component shortly. I would like to thank him for all his hard work as he moves roles in mozilla.org...Yada, Yada, Yada...

If we can't remove it for 1.0, can we at least change the default to not display it?

Nominating for Mozilla 0.9 although may be a bit late for that. I believe that this change should be made before 1.0 or after 1.0, this is so that people have a chance to comment on this change before 1.0 is released. If that is not possible then this change shouldn't be made till after 1.0

bug 76930 was filed by netscape people and is marked 0.9.1 (with screenshot). The "mozilla" tab thing is going

As bug 76930 has a target milestone set for it as well as an nsbeta1+ keyword I'll mark this a dup of that bug. As it has an nsbeta1+ keyword it means that Netscape are making it a priority to get rid of this bar :) *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 76930 ***

Well then, `netscape people' should perhaps learn to not file duplicates of very well-known bugs. Keywords and milestones are easily transferred from one bug to another; discussion, CC list, and votes are not.

*** Bug 76930 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

--> Andrew

I actually read most of the comments so my remarks/suggestions are based on them. My suggestion is: 1. Put the component bar on the status bar. 2. Add ability to disable component bar similar to "go" button from preferences. The component bar is necessary to provide a visual determination of mail "status" and easy access to the addressbook, navigator and mail For those people who dislike the component bar, they can disable it through preferences. The end result is more screen space for those who hide the taskbar and still want to use the component bar. And those who dislike the component bar can disable it. This should have no impact on the (use/future use) of the taskbar. Since I've used navigator, there has only been a handful of times that I needed to see the entire URL from the status bar so in my situation I only need to know that the page is loading and that it is "Done" .

The entire status bar should be "hideable". But that may be another bug.

This will have a major impact on existing themes, as it will break most/all of them, e.g. my EarlyBlue skin fits perfectly with current design. If we want to have merged bars in 1.0, and want to have a couple of good skins in time for 1.0, we should do the change early enough for theme builders to keep up.

Can you live with the status bar underneath the sidebar, rather than to the right as it stands now? If so, recent XUL changes will make this easier to implement. Wrap a named vbox around the status bar and taskbar. Then should a skin wish, it could orient the box horizontallly and hide any taskbar elements of its choice. This needs to be done in 14 windows :-( <vbox id="statustaskbox"> <statusbar id="status-bar" class="chromeclass-status"> ... </statusbar> <box id="taskbar" class="chromeclass-extrachrome toolbox-bottom"/> </vbox>

There are bugs on rearrangeable and floating toolbars I think they're the real solution.

Im working on this right now, basing my work on Ben Goodger's efforts to do this. It should be ready to check in within a few days. The work on creating custom toolbars, etc. is definitely a good thing and at some point in the future this may be ported to that, but the crucial thing right now is to get the taskbar out and move the status bar down. I have this working already in about 75% of the needed windows. I'm basically taking Ben's work and applying and updating it since his patches were 2 months old :)

- the component-bar element is a <statusbarpanel/> in tasksOverlay.xul, but is a <box/> in all the files that overlay it. It should probably be a <statusbarpanel/> everywhere. - in mailWindow.js you shouldn't need to write code for hiding/showing the progressmeter, as that will be handled via xbl - did you intend to make the change in msgMail3PaneWindow.js, and if so, why? - what's with all the new <resizer/> elements in the statusbar? Do we support that tag yet?

[s]r=hyatt

fixes checked into tree.

*** Bug 79699 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

This was not done correctly in Composer xul. It now doesn't show the taskbar components at all (both Modern and Classic themes.)

Isn't that the point of this bug, to not have a taskbar? Composer looks fine to me. I'll attach a screenshot, from 2001050904.

Is there a way to move the progress bar to the left next to the icons ? My thinking is it should be: [online/offline] [component icons] [progress bar] [status] [security] or something like that, just move the progress bar to the left. Adding myself to the CC list...

The progress bar is missing from mail/news

cant move progressbar back to the left of the status text because it will soon be having the behavior of collapsing alltogether when it's unused. This would cause the status text to jump around too much when pages load and stuff. It's going to collapse when not used so that space it normally takes up can be used by the status text for long urls. Looking into the progressmeter issue.

This looks good in Modern but has problems in Classic. The taskbar icons need to have the same raised look as the rest of the statusbar.

Yeah I agree re- the classic issue. The component buttons look like they are all at a lower level than the rest of the bar. Filing bugs on myself.

Is it possible to make seperators between the graphics (probably make it look nicer) something like [online/offline icon] | [hot launch icons] | [Document text space (hyperlink, loading text info) | [status bar] | [security icon] (and why is there a gap in that corner? it looks like the realestate is sold, but nothing is going to be posessed there. Quick, someone put mozilla in that corner, breathing fire or something!) Sorry for the spam, but it just looks like a rushed job to get it done and over with. I'm not really picky about this bug since I always run at 1024x768. Next thing you know, someone will be bitching to have a full screen mode like IE (evil) But thanks for freeing up the space! :)

Whatever the final plan is, make sure if the component bar isn't being removed all together, it's disableable. I hated the room it took up in 4.x, as I absolutly positively *NEVER* intend to use Mozilla/Netscapes Mail or Composer functions. Also, might be nice to have it disableable down to just a single 'new mail' indicator (similar to the page is secure/insecure lock icon). Course, this breaks the status bar only displaying information relevant to the page above it.

that area is for the sizing widget. adjusting the contents of the component bar should be a separate bug. although anyone can change the xul if they want to. i think view>toolbars> lets you hide the component bar. if not i'm sure it will.

By putting the status bar under the sidebar, you are implying that the security lock applies to the sidebar. I think this is very incorrect and is a potential security issue. Also, you are effectively making room for one less tab in the sidebar. I would like to see the component bar go away. Almost all of the "clickable" things in mozilla are at the top, so if the component bar must exist why don't you put it near the top. I can think of two areas: 1. The Personal ToolBar (It seems that there will be people that want the component bar and those who won't; that is, it will be a "personal preference" which seems to go with "personal toolbar") and (2) The right side of the menu bar (there is plenty of room, especially if/when "Debug" and "QA" get removed). Finally, you should move the "You are connected" button directly to the right of the security lock. If you put it on the right-hand-side of the status bar then it will draw less attention than if it is on the left-hand-side as it is now. Also, IE puts its indicator on the right-hand-side, so it is consistent with IE. NN 4.X puts the "You are connected" button right next to the security lock, so it is consistent with NN 4.X.

Charlie reopened this bug on the premise that composer was not working, but in fact it is. So I'm marking this bug fixed again. If you have issues with the placement of elements on the status bar or other features, etc. Please file new bugs as they are outside the scope of this particular bug ( which was simply to remove the taskbar and slide the status bar down - keeping the component bar) If you find bugs on the status bar - with it not working properly (already a bug on progressmeter not showing up in messenger and patch is ready) please file new bugs on me.

verify

the following was checked in under this bug: http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsview2.cgi? diff_mode=context&whitespace_mode=show&file=mail3PaneWindowVertLayout.xul&root=/ cvsroot&subdir=mozilla/mailnews/base/resources/content&command=DIFF_FRAMESET&rev 1=1.54&rev2=1.55 hidden="true" was added to the total and unread message count items in the alternative 3 pane. (they're not hidden in messenger.xul) I've fixed it. there's a bug logged, I'll cc andrew on it.

Mass removing self from CC list.

Now I feel sumb because I have to add back. Sorry for the spam.